American Higher Education Is Corrupt and Corrupting

What’s the Latest Development?

America’s universities have graduated another class into the frightening world of skyrocketing personal debt and diminished career opportunities, where they will likely be encouraged to continue their education. It has been said that the university undergraduate degree is the new high school diploma and that those looking for easy entrance into professional life would be wise to pursue a master’s. But rather than convey precious knowledge, educational institutions which certify achievement with a weighty piece of paper are helping to create an increasingly stratified society where those born with more resources come out on top. 

What’s the Big Idea?

While popular anger is directed at Wall Street, some of America’s supposedly more benign institutions may deserve equal blame for corrupting society. Finance constitutes a relatively small portion of the economy; healthcare, a dangerously ballooning portion. The American Medical Association, for example, colluded in blocking universal health care and is the kind of institution that continues to insist on elite education programs when more vocational knowledge would do. “When we ask ourselves whether populist hostility should be directed against the rich or against the professional elite, the answer must be, ‘Yes, please!'”

Photo credit: Shutterstock.com